The money follows

During the Watergate era, we were told that the way to understand the scandal was to follow the money. Well, it's obvious where the money is going these days:

Loudoun ranks as the richest county in the United States, immediately followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, while Montgomery, traditionally one of the wealthiest, is now 10th.

Where are those places? They are suburban enclaves of Washington, DC. And they aren't the only ones:

Forbes magazine ranked eight other Washington-area counties in its list of the nation's 25 wealthiest counties, far more than any other area in the country. The rankings are based on 2008 median household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

And why would that be?

While other traditionally wealthy regions such as New York and San Francisco have suffered heavily in the recession, the Washington area benefits from the presence of the federal government and its contractors, the overall high level of education, and the area's high proportion of two-income households.

Yeah, having a leviathan federal government around does mean that there's a lot of money sloshing around DC and its environs. It's also worth remembering that these are 2008 numbers, which reflect the situation before the recession really hit and do not reflect the huge expansion of government that is going on right now under the helpful aegis of Barack Obama and his Hope and Change brigade. I'm guessing that the numbers we get from the Census Bureau in the next few years willl show an intensification of this trend, which began in the 1960s and first became evident in the 1970 census. One thing is clear -- for all the complaining that was done about those nasty Republicans and their animosity to government, they surely didn't change the trends very much.

It used to be that our country rewarded those places where innovation is strongest. Now the keepers of the leviathan, their servants (contractors) and mendicants (lobbyists) are rewarding themselves. Good to know, huh?